Josh Frydenberg has promised a big aged care package in this week's budget

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has promised an aged care package in Tuesday's budget, which will be larger than $10 billion a year.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg arrives for Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, 25 March, 2021.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg arrives for Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, 25 March, 2021. Source: AAP

The flow of pre-budget announcements continues ahead of Josh Frydenberg's big night and with details of a huge package for aged care still to come.

The treasurer says his third budget on Tuesday will include an aged care pledge that will be bigger than the $10 billion a year previously speculated.

It will include reforms to home care and residential care, and governance, as well as skills and training initiatives.

"It is a very significant commitment designed to deal with what the royal commission has found to strengthen our system and ensure that older Australians can retire, can live with dignity, respect and with safety," he told the Nine Network on Sunday.
Health Minister Greg Hunt and Minister for Women Marise Payne also announced a $353.9 million health package for women spread over four years, which provides funding for cervical and breast cancer.

Mr Frydenberg said the budget will include a separate women's statement on women's economic and safety and health.

"You would have to go back more than a decade to see anything equivalent from that," Mr Frydenberg said.

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers hopes the budget isn't another of missed opportunities.

"It can't just be another trillion-dollar political patch-and-paint job," Dr Chalmers told ABC's Insiders program.

"It can't be the type of budget which is just geared towards the next election and not the next decade."
But Mr Frydenberg insists the budget is primarily aimed at protecting the economy from the ongoing pandemic and securing jobs.

"It is a pandemic budget. We are still in the middle of pandemic," Mr Frydenberg said.

"The budget is about people staying safe with a series of health measures and ensuring more people get into work because we have got the unemployment rate down to 5.6 per cent but we want to drive it back to where it was in the early stages of that pandemic which was 5 per cent."


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2 min read
Published 9 May 2021 10:33am
Updated 9 May 2021 10:51am
Source: AAP, SBS



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